The present invention relates to an apparatus for installing an escape device for slowly lowering a body toward the ground.
An escape device for slowly lowering a body toward the ground is composed of a lowerer body and a rope. The lowering system has a built-in centrifugal brake, and the rope is engaged with the centrifugal brake for lowering a person who is hanging at an end of the rope at a constant gentle speed.
Such an escape lowering device is designed such that the lowering system is fixed to a building body when an accident such as a fire occurs, for lowering a person on the upper floors to the ground by carrying him at the end of the rope.
The lowering device is installed to a part of the building by suspending the lowering system with a metal which is fixture fixed in a stationary manner to a certain place of the building.
The prior art as described above has some disadvantages. Since the metal fixture is fixedly installed on a building, the position for installing the lowerer cannot be altered. In some fires, places directly below the escape device will be in flames. In such a case, the escape device can not be used safely.
Moreover, the external wall of a building in general affords no foot holds. It is therefore, very difficult to get out of the building, or climb over a fence.
Further, if the rope is not tensed, the escape device allows a person to fall freely until the rope is tensed. So the rope must be tensed before the person descends, otherwise the escape device will severely shock the person who falls freely after he starts to descend slowly. Such a shock could cause the person to be injured and also could cause the escape device to break. In the conventional escape device, it is utterly impossible to check the rope before starting descent and it is quite usual that a person would fall freely downward.